The Denial Twist
by Devil's Espresso
Summary: Sequel to A Love Lost, please read that first! Or don't, whatever floats your boat. This is set postisland, assuming Sawyer and Kate make it off the island, that is. Note: The prologue and epilogue are set FOLLOWING the events that take place in the story
1. Prologue

The bright, dazzling blue of the sky told a lie; it was cold, colder than mid-December, but it was February already. Alone, a woman walked the length of the crooked, rough shore. Her dark, curling hair was tied back in a careless tail, leaving a single rippling strand swaying at the lift of her small, perfect chin. Her eyes were shielded by dark, sleek sunglasses, and a good thing that was. Behind the black lenses was a red, swollen face, the eyes of a woman who'd spent the last six months crying.

It wasn't like her -- to be weak. Nor was it like her to prance out into a public place, without so much as a dye job on her hair. But she hadn't been caught so far. Removing a hand from where it was, snugly tucked in her gray jacket, she absently untied her ponytail, letting it gently fall down her back and bounce on her shoulders. She stopped her steady, tired stroll to observe the bay's colorless waters. The beaches here were ugly, she thought to herself. It was not an uncommon thought, either, it occurred almost daily -- for the last week, she had come out here everyday, not entirely sure why.

The wind on her face was not a pleasant one, it carried the smells of the city: smog, garbage, exhaust. It also ferried the noises only a city can make to her ears. There were the car horns, the clicking and whirring of machinery, millions of voices, but most of all, the occasional cry of a gull, a relief to her ears, no matter how sharp and jarring. Presently, one of the large, white and gray seabirds caught her eye. It must have flown inland due to the cold. It swooped down to the gray, frothing surface of the expansive inlet of water, skimming the surface with its bright, scaled orange talons.

The bird propelled itself away from the water with a few powerful beats of its wings, claws hanging, without a fish to show for their troubles, uselessly beneath the gull's body. She sighed, lifting her shoulders with her chest as she breathed in and out. 'You'll find me when you need to,' she scoffed, remembering the words. It was a broken promise now, and in the cold, white air, it seemed anything but true. She looked down, feeling heat rise in her eyes, spilling onto her cheeks and splattering all over the dark plastic in front of her face.

_What if I never find him?_ The thought was too much to bear, she swiped the glasses from her face and soaked up the tears that had welled in their shallow, curving lenses with her sleeve. Replacing them, she continued to stroll down the beach, thoughtfully kicking at sand and the little black rocks that littered the shore as she went. Where had he gone? _Into the sunset._

The sunset was far away now. It was morning, and the sun was around its ten o'clock position. She would come here tonight, too, to watch the orange of the sun as it kissed the gray waves with a rare color, turning the open, dull bay into a sparkling sea of fire, striking up a remarkable contrast to the dark navy New York sky, always lit by the neon glow of the city. But now it was day, and everything was gray, drab, lackluster, washed out into a faded white by the sun, like an over exposed photo. If it weren't for the sunglasses, the bright white of the sand would have stung her eyes. She, of course, she realized with irony, was right at home here in black denim jeans and the gray, hooded jacket.

The beach was relatively empty, and every time the young, slender woman passed another being, her heart throbbed momentarily before she could realize that was not who she was searching for. No matter how much she told herself he would not be here, a strangle, deluded instinct inside her told her he would come back to this place. But why? He was so much better than an empty, abandoned sea shore in New York City.

She strained her eyes through the black veil of the glasses, hoping, wishing they would stumble across the tall, proud figure. The long, rough blonde hair. The square set of his jaw. One day she'd find him. Yesterday, she had waded, knee deep out into the icy water, unsure of herself. It had become a useless effort, searching for him. In the water. In the sky. He said he'd find her. And this, surely, she thought, was the place he would come back to.

Yet still, there was, with each day, week, and month a terrible sense of uneasiness growing within her. It made her heart beat faster, made her palms sweat profusely, as though she'd run a race. _But that's what it is, is it not?_ Yes, Kate's life had been something of a race. And now the only thing that could end it had gone, and was nowhere to be found.

She sighed again, looking up to the sky. She seemed to have lost track of time, she thought without emotion. The sun spoke of noonday. There was nothing to do, anyway. Another wasted hour. Slowly, she began the walk back to her tiny, grungy apartment, nestled in a darkest corner of the city. A place no one would care to look. No less gray and empty than the waters of the bay.


	2. Chapter I

Oily and rich, the smells of gasoline permeated the rubber-lined car windows. A small, clenched white fist collided with the window again, producing nothing but a dull thud that could, undoubtedly, not be heard outside the '78 Mustang. In the falling dark, the lanky, stooping figure of a long haired man tossed the black, plastic container carelessly aside, drawing something small from his pocket. It was too much to bear, in short, panicked motions, the hand flew to the little peg-lock on the door, jerking it upwards. In frustration, its thin fingers fumbled with the door's silver handle, finally managing to fling it wide on its hinges, sending it flying.

As the dark haired woman spilled from the stale, cigarette smoke saturated, peeling leather passenger's seat, an imperceptible scream passed her lips. The cool blue door slammed against the side of the car, rebounding and swinging in a full arc. The tall man stood, unmoving, not even so much as flinching at the sounds behind him, a metallic clicking filling the quiet night air, humming in the murdered silence. The woman struggled to her feet, regaining herself, she charged at him, "Stop, damn it, Sawyer!"

She plowed powerfully into his muscular figure, knocking him backwards onto the gasoline sodden grass. The lighter jumped from his hand, landing several feet away on the wooden steps to the large cabin with a hollow plunk. Lying spread-eagled in the grass, Sawyer's chest sucked in and out, "Get..." he paused to catch his breath, feeling disoriented from the fall, "the hell..." he squirmed beneath her, flexing his arms and forcing her away, "off me, Kate!"

Now it was Kate's turn to be dizzy, pinned uncomfortably on the ground. He had pounced just as soon as he'd thrown her aside, holding her shoulders to the ground with large, broad hands. She sent her feet at him instantly, but he dodged, still pressing her down into the grass, "I told you why I gotta do this, sweetcheeks," he snarled through his teeth, "you ain't gonna stop me. I'm lettin' you travel with me as a favor. Thanks to you, I don't got a safe place to live, so I got _things_ to do." He let go of her shoulders, bouncing into a standing position and diving after the little black lighter before she could catch his legs.

He flicked the lid open, clicking the little gear repeatedly until, at last, a leaping flame sprung into life. He chanced a quick look over his shoulder, she was running towards him again, feet making soft thudding noises, the ground hardly seeming to notice her there. Pulling his arm back, he threw the lighter at the towering, square log cabin, watching in horrified, yet gleeful satisfaction as the lighter fell and lit the gasoline that dripped from every inch of the wood, devouring the building in a matter of seconds.

The thudding behind him stopped, and a huge gasp came from Kate's direction. The flames were running down the porch now, dancing over the grass towards them. Sawyer leaped back, grabbing Kate and falling against the side of the old, scuffed car. "You _idiot!_" she seethed, pummeling him with furious hands.

"Hey!" he caught her right hand, chest and arms stinging from the surprisingly heavy blows, "I told you why we had to do this!"

Kate glanced back at the fire, collecting herself as the wood gave a loud, sighing creak. The crackling heat of the burning house washed against her skin, and she became suddenly aware of the sealed wound on her arm as the thin flesh blistered excruciatingly, "Where do we have to live now?" She asked, her voice more sorrowful than anything else, "Where are we going?"

"I told you, girl," he tried to growl again, but his voice weakened and lost itself in his throat, "I have things to do."

Steadying herself with the still-open car door, Kate found her way, incoherently, back onto the leather seat, the cold, trapped feeling of earlier banished by the raging, groaning fire. Seconds later, he'd taken his own place in the car, leaning against the steering wheel, looking exhausted.

"You want me to drive?" Kate asked, shutting her door and nervously peeking back over the top of the seat, watching the cabin burn, black curls of smoke spinning viciously upwards from the highest flames, "We didn't leave anything in there, did we?"

"No, and no again," he said, irritated, stuffing the keys in the ignition and angrily starting the car after a few stalling, choking sounds, "Sht," he muttered inwardly, shaking sweaty hairs from his eyes.

"You need a new car, too," Kate said, trying to catch his attention now. The car was the only thing he'd seemed to care about since they'd come home.

There was just a disgusted sigh from the driver's seat, and suddenly the car was hurtling through the grass toward the nearest road at a nauseating speed. Kate held fast to the the leather, her flesh sticking to it as her palms began to sweat. The lumberyard, the log cabin in its middle, and the edge of the forest were all disappearing fast. There was a bang that could be heard over even the rushing of the wind past Sawyer's open window. The roof of the two-story cabin was beginning to give way, slowly crushing in on itself.

"Sit down," he barked, reaching for her leg with one hand, wheel on the other, casting fleeting glances from her to the open, grassy land ahead. The car swerved dangerously as he pushed her back into the seat. He grabbed the wheel again, glaring briefly at her.

"It's really stupid to light a fire in a lumberyard, by a forest," she said in slight amusement, turning her head to stare at the fire again, though the worry in her voice was evident.

"Deserted lumberyard," he corrected uncomfortably, "What, you a pyro or somethin'?" He asked gruffly when she continued to fixate on the orange glow. He stared forward, intent on getting as far away from the fire as he could.

"It really is," she said again, as though she expected him to look over his shoulder, too, "they'll find us, now."

"Hell, sugar, they'da' found us if I _hadn't_ burned it," he said defensively, "I killed two birds with one stone."

"Yeah, I'm sure you did," Kate said, quirking a brow, still staring, "I still don't get how you're planning to pay--"

"Stop, right there," he said fiercely, hunching over the wheel, "there's the road."

"So we're going back to your house," Kate said, determined, "It'll be safe there, it doesn't matter."

"Look, girl, I spent two hours there gettin' my stuff before we came here!" He half yelled, glancing down at his feet, "just 'cause you made yourself cozy don't mean I gotta take you back."

"I'm not the one who's wanted," he said after a pause, "not here."

Kate looked away from the fire sorely, voice shaking a little, "Yeah, well, they wouldn't come looking there."

"I'm doin' you a favor. You should be thankful I like you enough to do that," he said sternly, disguising the praise within distrustful walls of words.

Eyes still down, Kate bit her lip, failing to avoid the painful thoughts creeping back into her mind. She wouldn't be alive if it weren't for him, she thought with a pang. He'd carried her back, after... She shivered, though she felt nothing of the night's cold air. He'd carried her back. With a broken leg. She shook herself, feeling as though her body had torn in two. "They're gonna find us anyway," she repeated flatly.

"No, god damn it, they aren't!" The frustration edging in his voice had become his trademark. He wasn't much different here than he'd been, back on the island... A huge shattering sound broke the tension in the car, stinging their ears, "Sht!"

The clear, smooth windshield was suddenly covered in long, spider-like cracks, each one extending to its own corner of the large, rectangular glass. A tiny, barely present tinkling sound followed the explosion of the breaking plate. Miniscule droplets of, razor sharp rain were falling through the gaping hole in the car, their only shelter. _No. That was glass._ Kate winced as one of the deadly raindrops bit her skin, and in an instant, all sense of direction disappeared.

---------

_The mattress was hard, lumpy, and not the sort anyone would want to sleep on. The boy was not sleeping, as the bed's composition suggested. He seldom slept here, and even dared to think that the splintering hardwood floor would provide a better bed. At least it had a rug, he thought, acknowledging the tattered gray and beige cloth. The thought entertained him. Pale hair flying, he lazily allowed his body to roll from the mattress. He hit the floor with a loud, hollow noise._

_His nerves jangled -- where was Mr. Molsbee? Surely downstairs enjoying supper with his wife, who, the youth thought with amusement, was more interested in her husband's well-paying job and position of power than his looks or demeanor. Like he, she was trapped in the hand-built log prison, though she had been here for a much longer time. He smirked, still pricking his ears for the sound of approaching footsteps._

_Perhaps, he mused, returning to his thoughts, his relationship with the tall, slender blonde woman was the reason his daily docking of pay and meals, on grounds of "bad behavior" never seemed to stick. Perhaps that was also why Mr. Molsbee's constant threats of 'I'll throw you out' often meant nothing. There were... other punishments, of course. _

_His eyes wandered aimlessly about the tiny, lopsided bedroom. There were no windows, just the "bed", the rug, a poorly sanded door (judging by the number of splinters it had managed to award the boy with), and those homely, crooked walls. In the day, light could be seen filtering through the spaces between the logs. But not now: It was blackest night. When it rained, and probably when it snowed -- though he'd not been at the lumberyard long enough to see the latter -- the room grew draftier than usual, and had once flooded._

_That was no matter, though. There was only one earthly possession for him to guard. With a mingling sense of rebellion and jealousy, the fifteen-year-old realized that not every room of the house was so poorly built and so scantily furnished. Why, even the cabin's foyer, one of its smallest rooms, had a regal, oaken mirror, and a fancy table inside. He folded his arms, wedging them between the floor and the back of his neck. It was Saturday night, certainly he would find something to do._

_A scything pain shot through the whole of his body -- the day's earlier plans had been balked by Molsbee; now that the right time for them had passed, they would have to wait. A sickly feeling of disappointment surged within the young man. He cringed, even his repeated excuse that he had been doing nothing more than getting a drink of water had failed to pacify his supervisor. A muffled sound echoed throughout the room. The boy's entire body tensed, becoming a buzzing circuit, crackling with the instinct to crawl under the bed. To hide from an attacker._

_He shook his head, freeing his arms and sitting up, cementing himself where he was. Do not be afraid. The noise came again, but this time more clear and precisely. It sounded like knocking on wood -- but it seemed to come not from the door, rather, from the outside wall. The sound was too hard and rough to be that of a fist. Realization dawned on the boy -- a rock. So he had indeed been saved, not only from the cage, but from the prospect of another lonely, sleepless night._

_Had it been a weekday, things would have worked out the same way. He still would have snuck out. Still would not sleep when he returned. Still would have to work on the following day after school. Delicately, he rose to his feet, walking soundlessly to the door, astonished at the floor's atypical silence. The little brass knob turned without protest, the door swung out. Not a sound._

_His feet guided his body around the hallway corner, out of the corridor, and into the foyer. The floor moaned slightly under his weight, and he withdrew, peeking cautiously around the door frame and into the huge, polished dining room. The sound of clattering porcelain greeted his ears. Molsbee and his wife sat on opposite ends of the table. The woman, Rachel, was facing him, and he stood on his toes to get a glimpse at her over the ugly, balding skull of his boss. Her expression of intense disgust melted into a radiant smile, and she nodded in the boy's direction._

_Molsbee did not seem to notice -- he continued to drone on and on about wood, and taking his truck in to town. Softly, the boy slithered to the house's front door, fingers closing around the knob. This one was silver, more ornate than his own. Intricate patterns of leaves and roses were engraved in the tarnishing metal. It was cold to the touch -- and the boy elicited a barely stifled gasp as the door opened, with a tremendous creak, into the dark evening. It was even colder outside than the doorknob had been, he thought, the sending undulating waves of chills through his body. The raking voice made itself apparent, elevating from the low, dull mumbling, "What the hell? Damn' door's open again."_

"_Must be drafty," came the sweet, southern, bell-like voice, followed by the screaming of compressed wood. The boy bellied up against the rough log siding, pressing hard against it, letting it rip his bare arms as he inched down the length of the cabin's front. Slinking around the jutting corner of the box-like structure, still in the shadows of the roof's overhang, the boy cowered, just as the heavy, screeching steps fell to the end of the porch's front half. The sound came again, and for one, dread-filled moment, the wiry, blonde boy feared he would be discovered. But as the footsteps faded, the boy's pulse slowed to a steady pace. The echoes of the crying wood no longer beating in his blood._

"_James," the whisper was hardly that, its owner trying much too hard to be heard, "James!"_

_The boy stole from the shadowed corner in which he'd hid, the scrapes on his arms stinging freshly in the still, freezing air. Springing gleefully over the porch's wooden railing, he found himself beside a boy about his height, "hey, man," he breathed._

_The boy smelled like cheap cologne and after shave, and appeared to be about a year older than the tan, blonde youth, though they stood level with one another. It seemed to be a new fashion at the high school to bathe in 'men's perfume', James thought distastefully. The other boy's pale, ivory skin contrasted to the chin-length, jet black hair that swept over his eyes. The graceful point of his chin lifted, "we're going somewhere cool, tonight," he said in a lazy, drawling, yet, at the same time, deep and abrasive voice._

"_Uh," James faltered, "just not the lake, Connor," he tried to maintain his voice._

"_We're not going to the lake," the raven-haired boy rumbled, the southern _

_influence in his accent showing just vaguely, a glint of clever, fox-like green appearing through the fringe of straight hair._

_Inside the tan Volkswagen Rabbit, the steed that saved James on most nights, a few lighthearted giggles floated from the back seat. The car sped towards the road as James cast a grinning glance over his shoulder. The two, auburn haired girls on the seat shot him flirtatious glances, batting long, mascara-blackened lashes._

_The blonde boy flopped back with a sigh, looking a little flustered, he jerked a thumb in a backwards direction, "Who are they?"_

"_The Gunn sisters," Connor murmured mystically, saying the name reverently._

"_Oh, okay," James murmured, dropping his voice, "just some random girls you picked up at school."_

_The air outside the car was thickened with a white, chill fog as the vehicle came to a rolling stop. It was all but impossible to see. The opaque, milky droplets in the air curled in little, snakelike tongues around the four warm bodies as they stepped outside, "where are we?" James coughed hazily._

"_You'll see," said the sly, wolfish voice again, "hey man, how long've we been friends?"_

"_I dunno, couple months," the boy shrugged, brushing the question away._

"_That's why you should trust me."_

_Connor stopped abruptly, and, to his shame and embarrassment, James crashed headlong into him, unaware of the change in movement, "hey, where are...?"_

"_Boo!" Connor's voice was a cold, arrogant bark. An orange-tinted light flashed on, illuminating each exquisite detail of his face, casting pools of shadow under his nose, hair, and eyes, "guess what?"_

"_Wh-what?" James asked aloud, clearing his throat to hide the uncertainty he was feeling._

"_Do you seriously not know, man?"_

"_What're you talking about?"_

_Connor let the hand that held the light fall, limp, to his side, he spread his arms wide, "Aw, hell, man. You gotta be kidding, right?" He paused, looking through the fog at the younger boy's face, as though he hoped to detect something in it, "It's Halloween."_

_James stumbled backward onto something oblong, smooth, and rocky, noticing, for the first time now, the wet squishing sound of dead, fallen leaves beneath his sneakers. Had he lost all sense of time? How long since school had started? He peered about in the fog, but there was nothing to see, save the slow swirling of the white shade. _

_Connor's dark figure broke through the fog again, there was the sound of something falling to the earth, nestling itself in the leaves. The light. It must have been the light. For now, a stream of the flashlight's warm glow was cast through the fog, cutting a clear path in it. "And to celebrate it, you know where we are, man?"_

_The blonde boy uttered a tiny scream, his eyes growing wide. An odd, little-known feeling of heat rushed to his face. Only for a moment. With a painful shift in his senses, he felt the all-too-familiar rage taking control of his body. In a split-second, the dark, heavy-lidded boy was on his back, on the ground, in the leaves, with the flashlight. His eyes fluttered and closed. It wasn't enough._

_Raising a fist, James brought it down on the boy's stomach with a torn wrath, uncaring when the boy's body registered no response. Out cold. Again, he kicked his shins. And once more, he raised a fist to him. A sharp pain stung James' cheek. One of the brown-haired girls from the back of the car stood before him, hand held high. Her eyes were brimming with tears, and she opened her mouth just a bit, "You... bastard."_

_The boy dropped his fist, heaving himself back to full height. Turning on a heel, he fumbled his way through the fog. The road would be somewhere close. From there, he hitched a ride back to the cabin, where, as he'd known there would be, forty lashes from Molsbee's belt awaited him. And for the rest of his school year, and his working career at the Molsbee cabin, he was never again rescued from the dreary, lonely nights in the cold, wooden chamber. It had taken several months for the welts from the latest beating to heal._

_It had only taken, however, a matter of hours for the batteries in the flashlight dropped in the cemetery to die and leave the area in its original swirling blankness. It had only taken a matter of hours for the gravestone of Mrs. Dawn Ford, Beloved Mother, to fall once into dark, its smooth, granite face gleaming in the wet, foggy moonlight._

---------

"And, that, children, is why we wear our seat belts," The long, drawling southern voice welcomed Kate back into consciousness. There was a furious wind on her face, and she thought, for some inexplicable reason, she felt dirt and -- what was that? A leaf? A leaf blowing against her face? She forced her eyes open.

It was a spectacular view of the stars, no streetlights around to dull their brilliance, no doubt about that, but there were downsides to driving without a windshield, "Uuhh..." she spluttered groggily.

"Yeah, rock broke the windshield," Sawyer said, noting her confused expression, "I'll get it fixed when we get to the town. It's not too far, if memory serves. There are hotels. Just hope no one steals my car overnight..." his voice trailed off, "and your head?"

Kate lifted a trembling hand to her forehead. Indeed, there was a swollen, tender spot there, "What...?"

"Bumped your head after I swerved when the shield broke," he said, casting her a rueful glance, "sorry."

"Yeah, that's fine," Kate said sleepily, turning to watch the wind ruffling his hair. Suddenly, she sat bolt upright, "Sawyer?"

"What, princess?" he asked coolly, not conveying even the slightest bit of concern.

"The cabin!" She asked, panicked.

"Yeah, I burned it," Sawyer said matter-of-factly, as though he was speaking to a child.

A look of worry settled over Kate's face. She gazed through the open front of the car to the black asphalt, "Why'd you have to do that, Sawyer?" she whispered softly.

"I don't see why you care so much," he started, "I already told you, it's got..." his face fell, "bad associations for me."

For a moment, just a brief moment, for the first time since they'd returned from the island, Kate could see the man who'd held her and promised to take care of her. The man who had problems. Not just past events, under the rug swept. All at once, she became aware of the small cut on her arm where the falling glass had sliced her skin.

"Because..." she began, hardly wanting to say the words, afraid of his reaction to her not having said anything before now. She had been looking back at the fire for an awfully long time before the windshield had broken. It would be out of control now. It would have ravaged everything. She shuddered. "Because, Sawyer..." she began again, almost laughing at the irony of the words. It was common sense. Maybe he'd meant to do it. But now he'd be pinned for destroying wildlife, "you didn't just set the cabin on fire. You set the entire forest on fire, too."


	3. Chapter II

"We could have just stayed at the cabin," Kate whispered as she tossed her bags into the dark room.

"Too late for that, darlin'," Sawyer said, almost in her ear, allowing his own bags to fall down his sloping shoulder, "It burned."

"I noticed," she said wryly, stepping inside after her bags and flicking the light switch. The fluorescent bulbs fixed in the room's ceiling sputtered to life, buzzing and clicking impatiently behind their grimy plastic cases.

"Hope no one steals my car," the blonde man laughed, following her and closing the door behind him.

Kate scoffed a little. She was certain that if Sawyer woke in the morning to find his car stolen, he would pitch a fit. She smiled secretly as she lifted a hand to her face to keep from breathing in too much of the dust that hung in the air. He was like a child, at times. Yet he was a man beneath it all, she realized as she slumped onto the whining spring mattress, one of two pieces of furniture in the room. He had done so much for her, and now he was doing the unthinkable, harboring a fugitive. His face was probably in the same place as hers, now… all over the news. He was wanted for countless crimes, murder, even. Yet, surely, she, his new traveling companion, would have catapulted him to the top of the FBI's most wanted list, right alongside her.

Hell, he'd even helped her escape the clutches of the law, whose arm had extended even into the welcoming party that awaited the rescue plane that had returned them home. They'd slipped away from that, and surely he would be held responsible for their latest mistake. Arson, lovely.

He sat down on the opposite side of the bed, "there's only one bed," he said matter-of-factly.

"Oh please," Kate sighed, "it's not like we've never shared a bed."

"Only once," he said, his southern drawl turning into a sharpened version of itself.

Kate shrugged, turning her attention to the antiquated chest of drawers that sat on the wall opposite the bed, "Awful simple room, isn't it?"

"Did you have something better in mind?" he asked, exasperated, turning his palms upward, as if imploring the ceiling for an answer.

"No, it's fine… how long will it take to get to your house? It's here, too, right? In Knoxville."

"We aren't in Knoxville," he said steadily, "We're on the outskirts, but it should only take me a few hours to find it in the morning."

"Okay," Kate pushed herself up from the bed with her arms, striding over to the chest of drawers. She began methodically opening each compartment in the antique. Its faded, warped varnish becoming more and more visible with each dust-depleting touch, "nothing," she said, sounding a little dejected.

"Were you expecting something?" Sawyer asked, laying down on the bed and kicking his shoes off, "A Bible?" he snickered.

"Oh yeah," she laughed, grinning at him in the dim light, "I was looking for a Bible."

"Little too late to repent for your sins, Freckles," he said, his voice changing, almost imperceptibly.

She looked down, her eyelashes brushing the tops of her cheeks. He was right, of course. She'd accepted that a long time ago. What had she been looking for, anyway? Nothing. It was silly. Always, she had this feeling she was looking for something, searching for it, but the longer she lived, the more apparent it became that this did not, and would never exist, "I'm going to change, okay?" She sighed, looking around, "There's no bathroom in here."

"Just change, then, I'm not watching. I should be the one afraid of peeping toms," he teased.

Hesitantly, Kate began to dig through her bags, and eventually produce an oversized gray shirt. Wedging herself as far into the opposite corner of the room as possible, she began disrobing.

"Now, I'm not lookin'…" Sawyer said defensively, "but it's not like I haven't seen you naked before."

Kate laughed, piling her old clothes together and tossing them into her bag, "I suppose so."

"No need to be all… self-conscious," Sawyer said uncomfortably.

"In the name of decency," Kate said, flicking the light switch and feeling her way around the chest of drawers and back to the bed.

"Are you sure you don't want me to sleep on the floor?" Sawyer asked, almost cautiously. As she lay down, he lifted himself from the bed and made his way for his bag, too, where he could put his shirt.

"I'm sure we can keep to our own… sectors of the bed, Sawyer."

"If you insist… but I know it's really just because you're crazy for me," every other one of his footfalls sounded heavy as he walked.

She laughed, but quickly sobered, scooting to the left side of the bed as best she could, His footfalls were heavy because of her. He'd carried her back to the hatch after they'd fallen, broken though his leg was, somehow he had managed to carry her back.

He edged himself toward the right side of the bed.

A thought played at her tongue. She wanted to chance asking him whether he could take a break from his "tour of revenge" or not to visit a place for her, somewhere from her… old life. No. After all, he'd say just that: No. Playing along with his plans would be okay. For now, anyway.

"What'cha' thinkin' about?" his voice came, tired and husky, through the darkness.

Weird. He wasn't one for small talk, "Nothing," Kate said, realizing for the first time that it was dreadfully cold in the room, "can you sit up so we can have the blanket?" she queried, tugging at one corner of the pitiful, threadbare scrap of cloth.

Surprisingly, without a word of protest, he pulled himself up, removing the blanket from beneath his legs and draping it over both of them, "we need to move closer together if we both want it," he said with a slight sigh.

"Okay," Kate said, her voice raw with over exaggerated resignation, pushing herself closer to him. They were not touching, but she could feel heat radiating off his skin. It was a strange feeling, but she was content to bask in his presence. It was something she could feel when she stared him straight in the eye, and when they were close to one another. It was a strange warmth, as it was a chill, too. Externally, she could feel his strong grip on her, the warmth in his touch… but beyond that, within him, she knew there was a seething rage.

And it was not a hot, boiling rage, like that of a rebellious youth, it was an anger that had grown within him for many years, white-hot. He did what he could to hide it, yet, still, it was clear, even to people who did not know of his letter, of his past, it was clear that there was some unresolved turmoil, some raging hell in his heart. She was afraid, she thought, to get close to him. He was a walking time-bomb, a killer, willing to kill again, probably.

… so was she.

Yet still, she feared her current position with him. She was not his lover, nor was she his friend. He had promised, for some inexplicable reason, to care for her, and so he was protecting her. Nothing more, nothing less. She shivered a little, she was still cold, despite the closeness of Sawyer's body. She drew the blanket in tighter to her chest, knotting it around her fists. A tiny jolt of fear shot into her mind. _What if he just decided not to take her along? Sure, she could fend for herself, it wasn't like she hadn't before._ Yet, something about the idea still troubled her; she did not belong with him, and it was because of whatever shred of kindness inside him that she was still at his side. He didn't know where they were going, she could tell that. But she didn't, either.

She sighed, squeezing her eyes shut. She could fend for herself, she wasn't defenseless. But still, there was something about the idea of wandering the country aimlessly without a companion… no, without this companion, that troubled her. She couldn't put her finger on it, whatever it was.

---------------

"_We can't keep him," the tired voice murmured._

"_Why, mama?" The tiny girl peeked over the back of her seat to look at the animal that lay sprawled in the back of the car._

"_Well, Kate, you know what Wayne would say…" the woman's tired face softened a little, "I'd let you keep him if I could."_

"_I don't like Wayne… I liked daddy better," the dark haired girl pouted, turning her freckled nose up._

"_I think we'll have to take him to the pound," her mother pressed on, ignoring her daughter's remark and brushing dyed blonde locks of hair out of her face, "I don't know why there was a dog outside the diner… nobody lives around here."_

"_No!" The girl cried, turning a tear-striped face up to her mother, "They'll kill him!"_

"_Oh, Katie, I'm sure they'll find him a home…" the woman murmured, her voice hushed._

_The girl looked mournfully back at the dog. His eyes were big and brown, and the flesh around them sagged in the most pitiful manner. His fur was dark and shiny – he looked as though someone cared for him. He was well fed, and all his features bore the mark of good breeding. Yet still, he wore no collar or identification tags. There was something sparkling in his eyes that screamed of human intelligence... His gargantuan paws were crossed on the car seat in front of him._

"_Mama… we can't take him there," she said, her tone pleading._

"_Well, Kate," the woman started, frustration edging at her voice, "what would you suggest?"_

"_We can leave him outside someone's house," the small girl said firmly, turning her doll-like eyes up to the sky outside the window shield. The sprawling expanse of black, Iowa velvet was dotted with glittering constellations of light, "he'll be safer if we leave him somewhere."_

"_I don't think…"_

"_We can drive him to the church, mama," the girl brightened. Her family did not attend church, but the idea seemed like a good one to her, "I'm sure someone there will be nice enough to take him."_

"_There's no one at the church at this hour," her mother sighed, turning the keys in the ignition of the beat-up truck, "it would be better to leave him where we found him."_

"_Oh," the girl murmured softly, "okay…"_

"_Will you let him out, then?" The woman asked, her voice growing ever more tired, and a little sad, perhaps._

_The little girl reluctantly jumped out of the car, dragging her feet as she trudged to the back door. The distance her hand traveled to the silver handle seemed exponentially greater than it really was. She had only been around the dog for a few precious minutes, but she felt attached to him, unwilling to let him go._

_Her tiny fingers fumbled with the door handle, "come on Kate, hurry up, we have to get home," her mother said impatiently, "just open the door."_

_Kate pulled the handle and felt the mechanism inside the door move as it came open. She pushed it wide, looking blankly at the dog. The animal just returned her stare. Indeed, there was something, a rather endearing twinkle, behind his eyes. He was an intelligent creature. She shrugged at him, stepping out of the way of the open door._

"_Call him," her mother said from the front seat._

"_Uh…" the girl breathed, not sure of what she was being asked to do, "come here, boy?" she said, unenthused. Her mother was attempting to push the huge dog out of the car. He moved a little, attempting to stand up in the cramped space. When this failed, he leapt from the truck, shaking himself and stretching his long, slender limbs in the open air._

_Carefully, the girl closed the door behind the dog, creeping back to her own seat in the passenger side of the car, avoiding looking at him as best she could. She closed her door hurriedly, looking steadily at the ground, "I feel bad, mama."_

"_Sometimes," her mother sighed, pulling out of their space in the diner parking lot, "you can't avoid that…"_

_Though her mind screamed "no", Kate looked back over her tiny shoulder, eyes searching for the proud, dignified animal. He stood right where she'd left him, in a pool of light cast by the single street light in front of the diner. He just watched silently as the car pulled away from him, his muscles not so much as twitching, his head barely turning to follow the motion of the car as it moved slowly down the street._

_The girl turned sulkily back to her mother, "I don't think we should have left him there," she murmured ruefully, "My idea wasn't very good at all."_

_The bolts that held the truck together made a perilous jingling sound every time the car dipped in and out of a pothole, or jumped over a large rock that had found its way onto the dirt road, "You better not be crying about this when we get back home," her mother said, suddenly stern._

_The girl's earlier tears suddenly sprung into her eyes again. She had quite forgotten that she'd been crying. She didn't want to go home. Not back to Wayne. Not back to discolored flesh and stinging pain. She wanted to leap from the truck just as the dog had done, and run away. Maybe, she thought hopefully, trying fruitlessly to stay her tears with a sleeve, maybe if she were to do that, someone would find her… _

---------------

The happenings of that night were still, after all these years, fresh in her mind. She remembered, too, having found, two days later, the proud, shining beast lying dead in the road. Surely he could have survived outside of his home, too, yet was, nonetheless, lost without his companion. Another regret – she could have taken him home. Could have done something. And was he any different than the next person or creature, just because he was a dog? No. He too was a living, shimmering being, whose life had been snatched away in an instant.

Another chill ran through her body. She did not sleep that night, but lay curled up beside Sawyer, remembering events of her childhood. No matter which memory she chose to visit, however, she found herself being led back to the inevitable – an explosion of fire and heat whose echoes still rattled around in her skull.

Guilt and fear took hold of her body, making her shake violently, her teeth chattering, her knees knocking together with each tremor that ran through her. It didn't matter that she was not alone, because she felt it, always. She could feel loneliness chasing her, clawing at her heels, waiting for her to trip so it could rake her into its vast maw.

The light of morning was salvation. Its pale fingers broke the single window in the little hotel room. It was still cold, but the light inspired new energy in her muscles. Gingerly, she crept from the bed, patting the blanket down where she'd wrinkled it during the night. With dainty, measured footsteps she walked to retrieve her bag, slipping on a pair of sweatpants and hoisting the bag onto her shoulder.

With an even softer step, she made her way to the front door and wrapped her fingers around the doorknob, twisting it slowly, so that it wouldn't squeak. When, finally, she had succeeded in opening the door without a sound, she took one last, sad look at the sleeping man beneath the tattered, threadbare blanket, and slipped outside.

The air was colder outside than in, of course, but it had a crisp flavor and smell to it, quite unlike that inside the stale, dusty hotel room. Inexplicably, she was possessed with the uncontrollable urge to run, and so she did. When she was about three hundred yards clear of the hotel, she steadied her sprint to a brisk walk, looking nervously back at the hotel room for any sign of Sawyer.

_Wait, what am I running from?_ She stopped moving, eyeing the traffic vein that passed to the right of the inn. _Sawyer hasn't done anything wrong to me. Hell, he's helping me._ Yet still she was out here, wringing the hem of her shirt into nervous knots with her sweating palms.

_But if I don't leave him now, he'll leave me later,_ she reasoned, _better to leave before I get too attached._ She stopped herself again, terrified at the notion. _Too attached to Sawyer?_ It was ridiculous. How could she be _too_ attached to the man who had rejected her, told her horrible things? He had saved her life, too. He had promised her things, too. Her mind raced back to the conversation they'd had on the cliff back on the island, and, for the umpteenth time that day, the thought revisited her: They were the same. Who else could she possibly travel with? Who else could she not travel without?

She shook her head. This was ridiculous. She didn't need him to live, and she was just a burden on him, anyway. He didn't want her around, no matter what he said about "the favor he was doing her". They'd both be better off if she left. But then… why had he done all these things for her?

---------------

_Her arms hung limply by her sides, her eyes downcast at the crumpled figure in the road. The long, graceful legs were twisted grotesquely beneath the sleek, brindled body. The dog's fur was matted, covered in some sort of grime. There was no dignity in his position. The proud, strong creature that had stood before her two nights earlier was now no more than a crumpled heap of…_

"_Oh god."_

_Kate turned her face back to the diner, her mother was approaching her._

"I told John to do something about this," Diane fussed, her shoulders falling, her typical demeanor even more depressed than usual, "come away, Kate." She reached for her daughter's wrist, but Kate jerked her arm away, unable to tear her eyes away from the animal.

_There weren't even skid marks anywhere around his body. Nobody had braked for him. No one had noticed he was there, lost, looking for someone, anyone, to take him in, to bring him home. The blood boiled in her adolescent veins at the thought of a drunkard speeding along the road._

"_Mama, how could anyone hit a dog this big and not notice or stop?" She asked, thoroughly distressed._

_Her mother sighed, "Kate, I don't know, just come away, please."_

"_No," Kate said quietly, "I want to bury him."_

"_Oh no, Kate," her mother's voice was cross now, "you could get sick if you did that."_

"_I don't care, Mama," she continued, "it's our fault he died."_

"_No it isn't," her mother snapped, "it's his owner's fault. Come inside now or I'll…" she paused, "I'll tell Wayne."_

"_No, no!" Kate cried, evading Diane's grasp again, "please mama, let me bury him."_

"_Kate, please just come away, you can't be that in love with a dog you spent barely any time with…"_

"_No…" Kate whimpered a little, "but… why?"_

"_Why what?"_

"_Why did someone have to hit him after we didn't take him home?" She fell silent, "I mean, why did that have to happen?"_

"_I don't know Kate," her mother said, rubbing her eyes, "look, I've got to get back to work… you were supposed to be happy I wasn't making you stay home with Wayne."_

_Kate looked down again. The dog's eyes were closed. There was no blood around him. He must have been hurt inside. She could feel her mother's hand latching onto her wrist, pulling her away from the animal, drawing her away from the last fragments of that intelligent stare, that sad presence. He was lonely, too, perhaps. And they'd left him there, they'd left him there to die. Left him in the road where he stood no chance. It didn't matter what dogs knew about surviving in the wild._

_She averted her eyes, remembering her wish to just be left alone, to run away like the dog must have. No… that was definitely a damning desire. She could see herself now, lying in a fetal position in the street… tire tracks across her chest… her mother refusing to bury her, too…_

---------------

Maybe the dog had felt the same way she did. Maybe the dog understood, just like any person, just what it was to be sad. Maybe he'd wanted to get away, but once he had, had realized he was lost… Maybe he'd stood in front of the car, purposely unmoving…maybe he'd died easy, of a broken heart. Maybe that was why there had been no blood.

"Ka-ate…"

The call carried itself to her ears on the slight morning breeze, it's southern intonations making its owner unmistakable. She turned on her heel, searching for Sawyer's silhouette against the white-walled hotel. She found herself running again, but toward him this time. She wasn't going to die of a broken heart, too. _If I'm happy running right alongside him, I will live it out until he tells me to go._

At last she was standing before him, panting a little, the stitch in her side still aching, "Went for a walk," she said briefly.

He smiled, "My car's still here… I'll check out… you ready to go?"

Kate glanced back at the main road again. It was better with someone she knew, someone she felt safe around, at least for now, "Yeah."


	4. Chapter III

_The taste on his tongue was metallic – so the guy had hit him again, that was a surprise. He spat distastefully, bouncing to his feet, letting his arms swing by his sides. He wasn't going to walk away from this until he got what he wanted. He wasn't going to walk away looking like some weak fool with a punched out mouth… but damn, that guy had hit him hard._

_The grass he had been knocked down on had stained his jeans, but now it was his ally as it allowed his shoes to grip the ground. He was trying to walk away. That bastard! The man's sandy, close-cropped hair glistened with sweat. He just kept walking, apparently oblivious to Sawyer's approach. Okay, it was fair to sneak up on him like this, he thought, now only inches away from the man's heels, the man had thrown the first punch._

_Deftly, he swung his right leg out. It collided with the backs of the man's knees. Sawyer shook his hair out of his eyes, pinning the man underfoot, and glancing around the park to make sure no one was watching him. This sort of thing seemed to happen a lot where he was concerned. But no, this was different. He could hardly suppress a grin, even as his growing anger and excitement began to make his hands shake. He wasn't one to shake._

"_Where is he?" he growled, crouching over the man, who was now sobbing for breath, "ain't so tough now," Sawyer mocked, grinding his heel into the man's back even harder, "I know you know…"_

_Somehow he doubted these words, but they spilled from his lips, unchecked. They did work for the same guy, after all. The black man's face appeared in his mind's eye. He wouldn't lie – this had to be who he said it was. This had to be who he'd told to meet Sawyer in the park. This had to be Frank Sawyer's son, and he had to know just where his father was._

"_Why'd you show up if you didn't know?" Sawyer barked, chiding him for his earlier denials of knowledge about his father's location, "Spit it out!" he half-yelled, flustered when he realized he'd drawn the attention of a jogger._

"_Man, I don't know… the boss told me I'd get another job if I showed up… really man, I don't know."_

_A myriad of questions suddenly exploded in Sawyer's head. If this was really Frank Sawyer's son, and he was in the same ring as he, why wouldn't his boss have said so before now? Was he beating up some random guy who had nothing to do with him? Probably. That just made his muscles even more tense, made him shake even more. Why had the boss lied, then? His blood was burning him… it was acid in his body._

"_Not his kid…?" Sawyer murmured, almost to himself._

"_Man, I don't even know who the fck you're talking about," the sandy-haired man whined, "why'd you have to hit me?" he squirmed beneath Sawyer's foot._

"_You hit me first," Sawyer coughed, lifting his foot from the man's back and stepping away from him._

_The man lifted himself to his feet, preparing to run away. Sawyer extended an arm, catching him by the shoulder, "If I find out you actually are his kid…"_

_The man's blue eyes fluttered shut, he seemed to be calming down, to be breathing more levelly, now. It was a feint. He drew one lean arm back, and before Sawyer could move, landed another punch squarely on his chest. The blow sent Sawyer to his back, again. But this time he wasn't disoriented – he wasn't just going to lie there, prostrate, while this guy walked away. Instead he swung his leg again, tripping him. The man fell to his knees._

_A small crowd of onlookers appeared to be gathering around the two men, "Fck off!" Sawyer screamed, unable to contain himself any longer, "Just get the hell away from me!"_

_On any other day, these peoples' shocked faces may have stricken a chord in his heart, but today they all just looked like idiots, their blank, frightened stares irritating him even further, "I said… get the fck away!" he roared._

_A few of them scurried away, but many just shrunk into the shadows of surrounding trees, peeking at the two men with a horrid fascination. Staring, disgusted, but unable to avert their eyes._

_The sandy-haired man was now lying spread-eagle on the ground, gasping for air again. The fall had left him entirely breathless. No more games. Sawyer drew one foot back and drove it hard into the man's stomach. The man doubled over, clutching his abdomen, his face twisted with pain, "stop it!" he shouted, attempting, feebly, to lift himself._

_Sawyer drew back again, kicking him even harder, almost delighting in the sound of cracking bone when his foot came in contact with the man's hands, "Are you his kid?" Sawyer roared again, "are you his kid?"_

_The man spluttered pitifully, moaning as he nursed his hands, curling up on his side, as if to protect his stomach from another attack._

"_Are… you… his… kid…?" Sawyer gritted, "SAY SOMETHING, DAMN IT!"_

_The man just continued his wretched coughing. Sawyer kneeled down beside his face, "tell me or I'll break your neck," all reason had flown from his mind – he was so close, so close. Maybe the boss hadn't lied after all. Why would the guy have punched him when he had asked him a second time if he was his child? The boss giving him work for showing up here? Unlikely, at best. He could taste conquest over the man who had ruined his life, already. It was almost as real as the blood in his mouth, almost as real as the guilt that crept into the corners of his mind for what he was doing._

_Terror had filled the man's eyes, their whites showing like those of a frightened horse as he shook his head pleadingly, coughing violently, expelling blood onto the grass every now and then. Finally he quieted, gasping desperately, "Yes."_

------------

"Remind me not to make a habit of driving without a windshield, Freckles."

"Oh, I will," Kate said, her voice muffled. She was hiding her face in her shirt sleeves to protect it from the biting air that rushed into the car, "How is this not hurting your eyes?" she asked, bewildered, "Maybe you can… um… slow down?"

He chuckled a little, "We're almost there," he started, "if I slow down it'll take… so long…" he said the last two words slowly, and when he finished speaking he sighed, as though the very thought had taxed both his mind and body.

She didn't answer. He almost laughed – she was probably rolling her eyes behind her arms, "Soo…" he said, bemused, "ever been to Knoxville?"

"No," Kate said shortly.

"Well, you're a Midwestern girl if I'm not mistaken," he said, his voice softly taunting, "but I think you'll like the south."

"And why is that?" Kate asked, her smile hidden.

"Car washes for only a nickel, sweet corn sold in the streets… bars that never close…"

Kate tittered, "I doubt anyone is selling sweet corn during the fall, Sawyer. And a nickel?" she laughed skeptically, "When was the last time you were even down south at all?"

"Oh, I go whenever I can," he shrugged, grinning, "but I'm sure it ain't quite like that anymore… that's just the stereotype," he said, emphasizing his final word.

Truth be told, he was uncomfortable about this whole affair. He didn't want to go back to his house, really. He didn't want to go back to revisit the most horrible event of his life. He didn't want to smell the smells, he didn't want to breathe the air, didn't want to think the thoughts… didn't want to do anything that was associated with that place. But he had to. It wasn't a matter of wanting… there could be something there that would help him… nothing else had…

He glanced briefly at Kate, worry crossing his features, the brisk air flowing against his eyes making them water a little. He felt almost sad. _No, no, not sad._ He felt almost disappointed with himself. He wanted to spend more time thinking about her, finding out what he could about her, relating to her. They were the same after all._ No… just doing her a favor by keeping her away from the cops. Risking my own damn neck, too._ His thoughts struggled with one another; just as soon as he'd had nothing to worry about, back on the island, they'd been plucked away from it all, transported back into the real world.

He did feel responsible for her, he had admitted that much to himself. He had made a promise, after all. Maybe it was time to start keeping the ones he made. She was hardly a vulnerable creature, but then why had she asked to go with him? And why had he felt so compelled to take her? _Was he just that: taken with her?_ He laughed to himself. That was stupid. Besides, he had other things to worry about, now that they were back in the 'real world'. He had lost time to catch up for. Things to finish.

_Did she deserve to get dragged into this?_ He rolled his eyes at himself, "what's with all this sentimental crap?" he mumbled.

"Hm…?" Kate asked, peeking up from the folds of her sleeves to look at him, too, "You look worried," she announced.

"I ain't worried," he retorted, looking at her as though she was insane, "We'll be getting' into the city pretty soon…" he trailed off, "'nother hour or two."

"Okay," Kate said quietly, covering her eyes again, "you're not worried…?"

"No," Sawyer repeated, glancing nervously at her. _Am I that transparent?_

"If you say so," Kate said, shrugging.

Normally, the comment would have annoyed him, but he had to admit, it was a little creepy; she was right, after all. They were the same, it made sense that she knew him so well. No. Despite all she'd said back on the island, how could they be? Sure, they were both criminals, they had similar pasts. It wasn't enough. If they were the same… He shook his head. _If we were the same, I wouldn't like her at all. Yeah, that's all it is. Like. The word was scribbling itself messily on the blackboard of his mind. Like. Like. Like. Like. Over and over and over again._

The thoughts were troubling to Sawyer, and so he busied himself about the task of trying to remember exactly where, in relation to everything else in Knoxville, his house had been. When this attempt proved futile, he found his musings wandering back to Kate. Maybe when this was all over, there would be time to get to know her better. Maybe once he'd finished what had been started, so long, long ago. Reflexively, as it so often did, his hand was walking itself to his pocket, feeling over the crinkled, folded piece of paper that was within. He drew it out slowly, his eyes still on the road, willing himself not to look at it.

He could just end it right now – make time for her right now. Make time for anything right now. Just end it._ Start over. _It wasn't impossible. A new word was being etched in his brain: Forgive. In an instant, the thoughts seemed weak, childish. He felt anger scorching the insides of his stomach, his fist clenched around the letter. _Forgive? Forget what was done to him? He could feel himself beginning to scowl. Not after all that I've done to other people to get to this point. Not after all that I've done to find him. Not after all that I've done._

He was holding the letter more loosely now, and saw, with a grim fascination, that the wind rushing into the car was trying feebly to pull it from his hand. All he had to do was let go, and the yellowing piece of paper would be swept from his hand, out the front of the car. It could be carried away, where, maybe, someone would find it, but they would not know what it meant, nor would it have any bearing on their life. That was a nice feeling. No obligations. Nothing. Just living. Just simple, plain living. Nothing to tie him to one time or place, nothing he needed to do. Frittering the hours away at useless games and tasks seemed like such a good idea… and all he had to do was let go.

_NO, DAMN IT!_ He clenched his fist around the letter once more, stuffing it hurriedly into his jeans again, and casting a suspicious glance at Kate. _Had she been watching?_ No, likely not – she looked as though she had drifted off to sleep. Her arms had fallen slightly from her eyes, revealing the freckled bridge of her nose. A few ringlets of dark hair fluttered against her cheek. Kate wasn't an obligation. She was whoever and wherever she wanted to be, wasn't she?

An odd feeling of dread filled him. It wasn't like the simple terror that was felt in a moment of fear – it was different somehow. He could feel his stomach sinking, and the sensation of being horribly out of place surfaced in his mind. It wasn't the feeling he'd had most of his life. It wasn't what it felt like to be an outcast, but rather, the feeling of uselessness, perhaps bafflement. _Why the hell would she want to be with him?_ Even if he ceded that they were "friends", even if he acknowledged that they'd slept together, even if he recollected the conversation they'd had on the cliff, why would a girl like Kate stick around him?

She had a tortured past, yes, that could be it. She was looking for someone to travel with, perhaps. She didn't like him like he liked her, that was always apparent, always one of his first thoughts waking. The confusion mounted – what if she was using him? She was a criminal, after all. _You are too, jackass_, he chastised himself for the thought. But surely she'd used men before. And what if he told her that he liked her? What if he told her he thought of her as more than a traveling companion? No. Those words would sound awkward, alien on his lips. They would come out oddly, with strange intonations. They didn't taste right on his tongue, even now as he fumbled with them, as though he meant to say them to her sleeping ears.

She surely didn't like him the same way he liked her. She couldn't. He found himself staring numbly at the landscape that flew by the sides of the stark, black strip of road. Before, there had only been a frenzy of colors. The blue of the sky battling with the reds and browns and grays of earth, and, it seemed, as he drove faster yet, that the two would blend into one another, creating one universal color that spanned across the entire of the sky and the land. But now, as he neared the city, there were various things interrupting the balance of color. Numerous objects lay in disarray on either side of the road; peoples' forgotten belongings, their rubbish, their unwanted possessions.

An empty car seat, a deflated tire, scrap metal glinting fiercely in the mid-day sun. There were pieces of garbage, food leftovers cast aside, still in their bags. Every imaginable piece of unwanted junk could probably have been found along the sides of that stretch of road, if anyone had bothered to look for it. Nobody would, of course, it was just waste. Just extra stuff, existing for no real reason or purpose. Just… there.

------------

_So the boss had been right! This was indeed the son of Frank Sawyer. Unless he was lying to get Sawyer to lay off him. There was only one way to find out._

"_Where is he?" Sawyer snarled malevolently, still close to the man's face._

"_Uhh," the man breathed in raggedly, beginning to thrash erratically in an attempt to free himself from Sawyer's grip._

"_Where is he?" Sawyer repeated, his voice growing a little hoarse now, "Tell me. Now," he reached into his pocket, fingers creeping carefully over the crumpled paper that could always be found there. He searched in his pocket until his hand made contact with a smooth, plastic case. He drew it out now._

"_Tell me!" Sawyer growled again, "tell me where he is!" He flicked the blade of the tiny pocket knife out into the open air. It was curved slightly, and it reflected a sinister, silver light onto the other man's face._

"_I can't!" The man said, still struggling with Sawyer, "I can't, do you hear me!" He was screaming now, as though he wanted the people who had retreated behind the bushes and trees to come out. He was screaming as though he wanted help._

"_You can't because you don't know? Or you won't tell me?" Sawyer barked, "Do you know what he did to me! TELL ME." He tossed the knife aside, winding his free arm back again, "tell me or I'll hit you."_

"_It's not like you haven't already," the man said, his voice thick with blood and tears._

"_If you wanna be smart with me…" Sawyer started, "you know what? I'll just skip the small talk." He rammed his fist hard into the side of the man's head._

_There was a dull thud, and the man stopped squirming. Someone gasped from behind one of the trees. He could hear sirens, but they were nothing compared to the roar of blood pulsing in his eardrums. When their lights were thrown upon the park's benches and pathways, a new kind of urgency took control of him. He shook the man violently, his head was lolling back and forth, his eyelids were fluttering up and down, up and down, up and down, "Tell me, god damn it!" He could feel defeat looming over him, and a sob escaped his lips, "Tell me…" he threw the man down in the grass as two men in dark, blue uniforms approached him._

"_Where… he… is…"_

_He could hear them whipping handcuffs out. He could hear the man's ragged breathing. The throbbing in his ears had died down, slightly, so he could hear the sirens of an ambulance, coupled with those of the police car, too. They cast their lights about in an odd, criss-crossing pattern._

_He didn't struggle as he was escorted into the policemen's car, and only one coherent thought was in his head: Why the hell did I just do that? Once he was shut inside his sometime prison, he leaned his head against the window, watching, as though he was just another horrified onlooker, as the man he'd beaten was carried into the back of an EMS truck. He was just his son, if even that. He wasn't responsible for what his father had done, and yet – yet there had been a great, thundering satisfaction in the feeling that the person squirming for air under his heel was connected to the man he most hated. To know that he had that man's very blood coursing through him. To know that he could make him bleed the blood of that man, to know that he could almost hurt that man in hurting his kin._

_It had been so close, but it wasn't the same thing – and it hadn't been right. For one of the first times in his life he could definitively say what he had just done had not been at all correct, and actually care. It hadn't been right and somehow, for some reason unbeknownst to him, it mattered this time that he had done something bad. It mattered that he had attacked a man who had done nothing to him._

_A whining voice piped up within the darkest corridors of his thoughts: He threw the first punch, besides… you just needed some information._

_He sighed in resignation, not wanting to think, feel, hear, or look at anything that would remind him of what he had just done. But still, he could taste insanity trickling down his throat, whispering backwards messages to him in its singsong voice, telling him he, and anything he did, was just and purposeful. No, not insanity – just the blood that was still in his mouth. _

------------

It was perhaps four o'clock when Sawyer actually managed to find the house in which he had once lived. Kate had awoken to him cursing profusely as he circled the vicinity of "where he thought the house was". He had looked flustered when her eyelids had lifted, and she had looked, utterly puzzled and perhaps slightly amused, at him, hunched over the steering wheel, looking conspiratorially out his window, as though the house would show up beside him at any moment. When they did find it, however, they both wondered how it had been possible to miss the thing. It would definitely catch the passing eye.

The house may have been described as "plain" or "boring" when Sawyer was a child, but as it aged, it was slowly becoming a relic. Its grandiose, suburban simplicity making it more unique than any of the lawn-ornament littered lawns and barrel-tiled roofs that surrounded it. It was a two-story building, and, somehow, after all these years, its exterior walls had remained a brightest white. Yet it exuded an air of neglect, the shutters on its second-story dormer windows sagged a bit, and shingles were missing in a few patches on its steeply slanting roof. The lawn before the house was dead, of course. The gnarled, twisted remains of a rosebush snagged at Kate's shirt as she brushed past, "We're not going to burn this, too, are we?" She wondered aloud, quieting at the look she received in response.

"I'm just lookin' for somethin', Freckles, you don't have to come in if you don't want." He was about to tell her to 'stay out of his way', but he had a feeling she'd do so anyway. She wasn't dull.

"No one lives here, then?" She asked, peeking in the dirt-clotted window that was set in the house's regal front door.

"I hope not," Sawyer said cavalierly, letting himself in, "Door's unlocked."

The house, oddly enough, did not smell of dust the way the old hotel room had. Instead, there was a peculiar scent in the air, all about. It seemed to have faded somewhat in the past decades, but it bore the unmistakable trademarks of potpourri: Slightly biting, but soft, too, somehow. Kate almost spoke up about the eerie blue light that flooded into the house via its half-shaded windows, but shut her mouth as soon as she'd opened it – a change seemed to have overcome Sawyer. It was as though entering the house had transported him back to another time or place. His childhood, she could only guess.

A look of absentminded wonder was displayed upon his face, an expression she had never seen make its home on his features. His eyes were wide, somewhat glassy, and his mouth hung open ever-so-slightly. His confident, if somewhat jagged swagger and superior demeanor seemed to have melted into much more benign, almost adolescent forms of themselves. There was only the smallest scrap of confidence in his walk now, as he shuffled awkwardly about the front rooms of the house. But most of all, he was silent. He looked at each wall, at each counter in the kitchen, at each cinder in the fireplace as though it was a person, staring reverently at it for a few moments before moving on to the next marvel, like a new child.

She had stopped following him after a while, and had settled herself against the front hall's doorframe. The house was bare, very, very bare. Though there were tiles and shiny hardwood planks on its floors, there was no furniture in sight. There was nothing that could have been used for cooking in the kitchen. In fact, the only functioning rooms were probably the bathrooms. Kate doubted if the plumbing worked. The electricity didn't, she noted, gently flicking a light switch in the hall, so as not to make a sound.

Sawyer had come back into the main room, but his self-conscious stride had gone again, and was replaced with an odd sort of stomping. The look of wonderment on his face had given way to one of complete rage, but, despite this, he whispered, almost to himself, his voice a low rumble, "There's nothing here."

Kate said nothing, she just locked her eyes on him, watching him as he moved about, looking for something, anything.

"There's nothing here…" he said, looking up at her, distressed. He looked almost sad, Kate realized with a pang. That was the way he looked when he read the letter. Sad, but angry, too. Always angry.

Kate wanted to ask what it was he was searching for, but this was his battle, not hers, his –

"Come upstairs with me, maybe there's something up there."

The second floor of the house was just as old and strangely lit as the first floor, but its floors creaked underfoot, and there _was _furniture up there. Someone had somehow forgotten this place needed to be cleaned out, because there was furniture in every room, not just some of them. Kate walked with Sawyer now, still keeping her distance from him. Slowly, she began to piece together the broken bits. The things his letter described, had they happened here? Was that why seeing the furniture up here, probably as it had been in his youth, had increased the look of distress in Sawyer's eyes ten-fold?

Even as he opened every door and closet he could find, there was one room he avoided. Its door was shut, not even ajar, and no light spilled from under it. When he passed it, she could see, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up, as though he'd experienced a chill. She felt nothing there.

Methodically, he began going through each and every room on the second floor, looking under things, looking inside of things. Throwing things. Yes, he was throwing things. By the third room he'd checked for whatever it was he was searching for, he had begun tossing the smaller articles of furniture into the walls, muttering things to himself, kicking at the floor. It wasn't like him to have a fit like this.

"Sawyer," Kate said finally, appearing in the doorway of the fourth room he'd chosen to enter, "What is it you're looking for?" Her words were soft, chosen carefully.

Sawyer said nothing. He didn't even look at her, he just half-grimaced and tore through the room, coming, eventually, to a rather tall chest of drawers. He flung each one open in turn, eyes lighting each time one opened, as though he still harbored a secret hope that he would find what he wanted. He began taking the drawers out of their wooden case, tossing them, as though they weighed nothing, over his shoulder and against the back wall of the room.

Kate jumped when the first one made contact with the wall, punching a hole in the plaster board there, "Sawyer…" she said again, gently, slowly beginning to walk toward him.

He ripped the last drawer from its place, took one look inside the case, and sunk to his knees. He was breathing heavily, his skin shining with a thin layer of perspiration, "No…" he whispered into the air above him, "no, no… there has to be something here… this was the last place…"

Kate reached a pale hand out to his shoulder, touching him softly. To her amazement, he neither jumped, flinched, nor cast her arm aside, instead he just stayed where he was, chest heaving. She knelt beside him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and resting her cheek on his back.

"Why…?" he said, louder now, all facades forgotten, all exterior appearances demolished. He was raw, turned inside out, all his thoughts and feelings began pouring from him, in both his motions and his utterances, as he turned and slumped against Kate's shoulder. He wasn't crying, no, he wouldn't let that happen. He may have been twisted in knots, his most vulnerable and needy side exposed, but he wasn't going to cry. His breathing slowed considerably as Kate whispered in his ear.

"Shh…" she said softly, feeling a sting at the corners of her own eyes. She had never seen this before. This was the place where his life as a child had ended. This was the place where Sawyer had been born, where the man she knew today had dreamed himself up, reinventing every aspect of himself, trying to mend the broken fragments of his being. She swept his hair from his face, leaning her forehead against his.

"There has to be something…" his whisper was as feverish as his skin, his breath tickled her collarbone, "There's got to be something left here…"

Kate embraced him again, looking helplessly into the dark confines of the empty chest of drawers. There was nothing there, just black, unrivaled shadow – _wait, what is that? _There was a tiny, crumpled white ball nestled in one of the structure's bottom corners.

"Wait, Sawyer," she said, intrigued, leaning him against the wall, as she drew away to inspect what it was. _Probably just a little piece of lint_, she thought practically, leaning over to pick it up. _Or maybe a piece of paper. Yes, that's what it was_, she realized, beginning to unroll the tiny ball, careful not to tear it.

Sawyer was beside her in a flash, looking over her shoulder, equally interested, his grief momentarily forgotten. She laid the little paper out on her hand, squinting to see what story the faded pen strokes it wore told.

"It's too easy…" Sawyer exhaled heavily over her shoulder, as though doubting the thing's existence. He reached out to touch it with one, slightly shaking finger. Then he almost laughed, "What are the chances?"

Finally, Kate could see what it said: _Frank – 743-2083._


End file.
